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The Pumpkin Papers:
Key
Evidence in the Alger Hiss Trials

What were the
Pumpkin Papers?

The Pumpkin Papers consist of sixty-five pages of retyped
secret State
Department documents, four pages in Hiss's own handwriting of copied
State
Department cables, and five rolls of developed and undeveloped 35 mm
film.
The film included fifty-eight frames, mostly photos of State and Navy
Department
documents. The State Department documents dealt with a wide
variety
of subjects, including U. S. intentions with respect to the Soviet
Union,
the Spanish Civil War, and Germany's takeover of Austria. Other
frames
dealt with subjects that hardly seem the stuff of spy novels, such as
diagrams
of fire extinguishers and life rafts. All of the documents that
bore
dates came from the period from January 5 through April 1, 1938.

Four images of Pumpkin Papers are included below. To see
a larger
image, click on the thumbnail photo.

Why the name
"Pumpkin Papers"?

More accurately, the Pumpkin Papers would be called the
"Dumbwaiter
Papers." The sixty-five typed pages and four handwritten pages
all
came from an envelope removed from a dumbwaiter shaft in the Baltimore
home of Whittaker Chambers's nephew's mother, where they apparently had
been kept for ten years. (The typed papers and notes are
sometimes
called "the Baltimore papers.") The name "Pumpkin Papers" comes from
the
fact that the rolls of 35 mm film were found wrapped in waxed paper
inside
a hollowed-out pumpkin on Whittaker Chambers's Maryland farm. In
response to a HUAC subpoena, Chambers on the evening of December 2,
1948
dramatically led two HUAC investigators to the patch, where the film
had
been placed by Chambers only the previous day.

The hollowed-out pumpkin
at
Chambers's farm that contained two rolls of undeveloped film. Chambers led HUAC
investigators
to the pumpkin on December 2, 1948.

Who typed the
papers?

The identity of the typist of the sixty-five State Department
documents
was a major point of contention. The government argued, and
successfully
convinced the second Hiss jury, that the documents were typed on
Woodstock
typewriter, number N230099, owned by the Hiss's in early 1938. The 1938
papers, according to experts who did comparisons, were typed on the
same
machine as produced other Hiss typing from the earlier 1930s.

The government maintained that Hiss's wife, Priscilla, typed
the documents
(Alger was a hunt-and-peck typist) because he could not risk keeping
the
originals more than overnight, and that Chambers collected material for
the Soviets only every seven to ten days. Simply put, the
government
asked jurors in the Hiss trial who--other than Alger or Priscilla
Hiss--had
access both to the State Department documents and the Woodstock
typewriter,
and therefore could be a possible source of the Pumpkin Papers?

Hiss argued at trial that neither he nor his wife could have
typed the
documents because the Woodstock typewriter identified as having been
used
to type the documents was given away by them in 1937. The defense
made much of the fact that no documents known to have come from Hiss's
Woodstock typewriter (originally purchased by Priscilla Hiss's father
in
1927) could be found bearing a date of later than May 1937. Hiss
testified that he gave the typewriter in 1937 to Mike Catlett, a man
who
did odd jobs around the Hiss household. Catlett confirmed that he
received the Woodstock typewriter from Hiss, but could not remember the
date he took possession of the machine. Mike's son, Pat Catlett,
on the other hand, told defense lawyers that the family received the
typewriter
in the spring of 1938, a date more helpful to the prosecution than the
defense.

Woodstock N230099

When was the film
found
in the pumpkin manufactured?

HUAC sent the film to Eastman Kodak to determine the date of
manufacture.
Initial test results indicated that the film was manufactured in
1945.
If these results were accurate, Chambers lied and Hiss was
vindicated.
Based on the initial results, an outraged Richard Nixon even called
Chambers
and told him he was a liar. Subsequently, however, Eastman Kodak
reported the initial report was wrong, and that the film was made in
1938,
consistent with Chambers's story.

Why did Whittaker
Chambers
reveal the existence of the papers when he did?

Whittaker Chambers made no mention during the HUAC hearings
in August
1948 of the papers he said were given to him by Hiss. He
explained
later that he did not reveal the existence of the papers in order to
protect
Hiss, who he called "a good friend," from espionage charges.
Things
changed, however, when Hiss sued Chambers for slander. While
conducting
a pretrial deposition of Chambers, Hiss's attorney, William Marbury,
asked
Chambers to produce "any correspondence, either typewritten or in
handwriting,
from any member of the Hiss family." Hiss's attorney never
expected
(nor would he have asked for, had he known) the response that he
received:
sixty-five typewritten pages and four handwritten pages, all allegedly
given to Chambers by Hiss in 1938. Chambers turned over the
documents
on November 17, 1948. Chambers made a statement at the time:

In response to your request to produce papers from
Mr. Hiss,
I made a search, and I have certain papers in Mr. Hiss's handwriting
and
certain other papers...I was particularly anxious, for reasons of
friendship,
and because Mr. Hiss is one of the most brilliant young men in the
country,
not to do more injury than necessary to Mr. Hiss. Therefore, I
have
carefully avoided testifying to certain activities of Mr. Hiss an any
place
or any time heretofore...

Chambers later told Nixon and HUAC staffers that he turned over the
documents
because of Hiss's attorney's investigation into his alleged mental
instability
and aggressive questioning of his wife. Chambers said that he
concluded
that "Hiss was determined to destroy me--and my wife, if
possible."
Another factor might have been Chambers's concern that if a jury found
him guilty of slandering Hiss, Chambers in all likelihood would have
faced
a Justice Department prosecution himself.

Where were the
papers between
1938 and 1948?

There is evidence suggesting that Chambers originally gave
the documents
for safekeeping to a Communist friend named Ludwig Lore. After a year
or
so, Chambers apparently asked Lore to give him back the documents. From
approximately 1939 to their removal in November, 1948, the envelope
containing
the documents and film was stored in a dumbwaiter shaft in a Baltimore
house. The house was formerly occupied by Nathan Levine,
Whittaker
Chambers's nephew. At the time of the removal of the documents,
the
home belonged to Nathan Levine's mother.

Weathered envelope, found in a dumbwaiter
shaft in
Baltimore,in which the documents were found.

Why did Whittaker
Chambers
save the documents?

The papers date to the time of Chambers's decision to leave
the Communist
Party. At the time of his defection in 1938, Chambers feared for
his life. Chambers believed that hiding evidence that might
incriminate
another important Soviet agent might be a measure of protection against
those who would wish to do him harm.

What role did the
Pumpkin
Papers play in the conviction of Alger Hiss?

The Pumpkin Papers played a decisive role in the Hiss
trials.
The government produced witnesses who traced the contents of various of
the papers to the office of Francis Sayre at the Department of
State--Hiss's
office in 1938. Another witness explained the relative secrecy of
the retyped messages and how they must have been based on stolen
documents.
Still other experts identified the typing as being done on Hiss's
Woodstock.
The most critical testimony came from FBI laboratory expert Ramos
Feehan
who, by comparing characters (for example individual "e"s and "g"s) on
"Hiss standards" (letters concededly typed by Hiss in the 1930s) and
the
65 typed papers recovered in Baltimore, concluded that they were
produced
by the same machine.

Jurors in the deadlocked first Hiss trial agreed that the
Pumpkin Papers
were the key evidence. Eight jurors accepted the prosecution's
argument
that Priscilla Hiss typed the papers on their Woodstock
typewriter.
The four holdouts for acquittal accepted that the papers were typed on
the Woodstock formerly owned by the Hiss's, but thought that perhaps
someone
other
than either Hiss composed them.

In the second trial, prosecutor Thomas Murphy closed by
telling the
jurors, "Each of these documents, the typewritten documents, and the
handwritten
documents, each has the same message. And what is that message?:
"Alger Hiss, you were the traitor. Alger Hiss, your feathers are
but borrowed and you can't change these documents." This time,
all
twelve jurors bought Murphy's argument and convicted Hiss of perjury.

Did Alger Hiss ever
admit
that the papers were genuine?

No. Alger Hiss continued to contend, even after his
appeal was
rejected, that the sixty-five pages were forged by Chambers--either
using
Hiss's borrowed typewriter or forging them "so as to make them appear
to
have been written on the Hiss typewriter." He conceded, however,
that the four notes were in his handwriting.